Sociology of the State and its Law

Term:
Spring 2009

Subject Code:
GPOL

Course Number:
6118

The course will consider the history and forms of organization of the modern state from an interdisciplinary point of view. The first part of the course will pay a great deal of attention to Weber’s sociology of the state and state formation, and its extensions in authors such as Elias, Foucault, Tilly, Mann, Giddens, and Poggi as well as to constitutional law theories of sovereignty, state regulation and self-regulation. The second part of the course will relocate the state in its international context and re-consider state development from the point of view of imperial globalization. We end by considering several empirical and normative theses concerning the end of the state. The course meets together with the Columbia University Political Science course on the Theories of the State.